This comes from Jennifer Croslin Smith, a Tennessee parent and a founder of http://stoptntesting.com/. No more bake sales or raising money for school uniforms. Nope:
“We were just told tonight at our Back to School night that our PTO is foregoing raising money for iPads this year so we can instead purchase computers for Common Core testing which will begin in 2014-2015. We are lucky if we raise $20,000/year at ______–yet all of that money (from what I understand) is going to fund computers for standardized testing. The state mandated the adoption of Common Core so, as far as I am concerned, they can pay for the computers we need to take these tests. It is not fair that parents should pay for something that the state should be providing for already. What about those schools that don’t have parents wealthy enough to cover this unfunded mandate? What are they supposed to do? This makes me sick.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
In other news …
Ann Arbor Public Schools Sued Over Charging Tuition
Parents should NOT raise money to pay for Common Core testing! Parents such as Ms. Smith need to keep making sure that other parents, especially those who might not be technology users, are educated about this nonsense and its disasterous effects so that they will be more likely to refuse to fund this insane testing. Everyone in the area who is asked to buy such products needs to say NO. NO ONE should support this effort in ANY way. Even if the school succeeds in purchasing the computers, parents should OPT THEIR CHILDREN OUT! No one should be sitting at those computers come test time!
This is like being punished and then forced to pay for the punishment.
Stop the insanity! Let the reformanatrix crew handle this little problem.
Which is very fitting, since we’re returning to feudal times, during which one had to pay for one’s time in prison.
MCL,
“reformanatrix” That has a certain subtle sick tone to it. Excellent neologism!
Duane
How outrageous that parents would be expected to lend their energies and precious time to subsidize companies making huge profits. Bad enough that their taxes are being wasted on high stakes testing to the detriment of high quality teaching, the arts and enrichment activities. Truly disgusting.
I wonder who will buy the computers for charter schools?
Parents and students hold the cards in this nightmare. If parents would opt out and say NO, if students would start a FB campaign to end the testing, things would change.
It would just take 1 or 2 students to get the ball rolling.
LIKE! again you should not have to dole out extra dollars to pay for Pearson testing!
I wish there was a nicer way to day this, but…
The PTO should tell them to go F themselves.
No one in any area of our education system has the courage to step up and just say no. This is it. We have had enough.
I live in Massachusetts and worked on the early development of tests and curriculum for MCAS and I think Arne Duncan is going about it in the wrong way. Tell your parents to raise money for musical instruments, for theater or art or ballet costumes, add anything in the arts that you can think of and pull back from the funding of computers. It is like the 60s when some of my women friends (they were a bit younger than me) went out to burn bras. We needed those young women in the struggle. It needs to be visible and political. I am going to a wedding in Albany NY in two weeks and I will tell every parent there that I will prepare a two page report on their high school student (I will only charge $1 per child to make it legal). I will take their GPA, their academic history and the test scores (showing they fail) and I will encourage the parents to go back and apply for special education funds because the child is failing. Would it break the bank? Yes, because they don’t have the special ed funs or the staff; then go to every elected official and describe the need for special education funds because so many children are “failing”. Let the elected officials wrestle with that dilemma. This is a political strategy and it is the only one I can dream up but that is the kind of battle that you are dealing with. It’s not as exciting as burning bras but it shows the illogical parts of the system.
I like this idea. I think it’s time to think outside the box and end this madness. Please update us with the results.
Ditto
That is an awesome and novel idea. I wish you all the best and success with it.
this is my letter to two young women who work in universities:
quote: ““I really believe that Harvard University, or really any university, should view itself in a community context as a neighbor and apply the same values and principles that you’d apply to any other neighbor: being helpful, being mindful of your role as a member of a community, and recognizing the rights and responsibilities that those who surround you also have.”
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I thought we were neighbors at BU when Jeanne Chall, Blanche Serwer and Carol Chomsky were there. Naomi Zigmond was treated as a neighbor and we were the grad students so we felt accepted in a neighborly way. I think that good people can agree on issues and disagree on some points; my neighbors today (2) are ordained ministers — that was very rare for women who are now between 60 and 75. My other neighbor is an Ayn Rand sympathizer but we have mutual respect; there is an interesting book on how good people can disagree on politics and religion. One area where we disagree on issues is civili rights and civil liberties.
When Trayvon Martin’s family went through a tragic year, the opinions about the verdict largely split on racial lines; a lot of the women in my age group were on the side of the Martin family. Peterson took it the same day to make political advantage beating upon Randi Weingarten becaise she spoke out as a union leader.
If I am harsh on Fordham it is because they deserve it. You need your job and you cannot confront your superiors so this email is about the futures of students and those who would like to be critical thinkers and not conformists. I, too, studied at the Andover School of Theology but I only took a few courses in family dynamics whereas Judy and Sharlene went further to the step of being ordained I went back into classroom teaching. Rosemarie , Sandy, Bonnie, Linda, and Patsy all went further with four doctoral degrees out of 5…. but Mike Petrilli and his crew at Fordham would tell you these degrees are worthless. I’m just saying don’t listen. Not everyone is your enemy.
My understanding of PTA (not PTO) is that this organization is a child advocacy organization, not a school advocacy one. If the PTO functions under similar guidelines I would think you need to do what is best for children and you do not take orders from your principals, superintendents, etc. Your job is to help children thrive within the school community, which means you can feel entirely justified in saying raising money to meet unfunded mandates is not your job.
What the parents need to do is raise money to STOP COMMON CORE.
The national PTA just got bought out by the Bill Gates people with a $$ bribe to…well I’ll let you guess what he has in mind for them. So, let’s answer the parent. What can she do? Call an emergency meeting of interested parents? Assemble a quick, protest PowerPoint, or can someone send her one? Contact the state ACLU? Email the Tennessee School Board Association? Partner with every Tennessee NCLB/CC protest group and ask for assistance? How many of these groups actually exist within TN? Get in touch with the NAACP because this is also aimed directly at poor communities of color.
I have a few choice words, but, in deference to all, I’ll call that move “gutsy”. I agree, if you won’t the CCSS testing the state can pay for it. As a teacher I have ‘issues’ with students being asked to fund-raise, sell, go door-to-door and I’ve seen in in DC and also MoCo, MD. Enough already. All schools should be FULLY funded. Fund raisers should be for community and church projects, not a government service.
Let the districts and the state pay. When they realize the cost, they might come to their senses on common core. After all, it is the money, not the children they care about.
I have ‘checked out’ and do not give funds to my children’s school anymore. Looking for the day I move to private to escape the reform and cc indoctrination or home school.
This goes right along in line with Obama and his health plan. Released today is the fact that health care is going to cost a regular family upwards to over $9,000.00 per year. You spoke about poor families. What is a family going to have to do, work three jobs per day, just in order to place a roof over their head, have food on the table and have the forced health care by a so called illegal, lying black pressy in the black house in DC. One that has probably lied, cheated and clawed his way to the top, while rubbing elbows with the rich and famous, and doesn’t have one clue what it is like to struggle to make ends meet in this economic cesspool of america.
And, if one takes offense to my words above, so be it. Those above words come from a 100% Patriot, a Marine Corps Sergeant, Vietnam Veteran, Cold War Veteran, Police Worker, Deputy Sheriff, and a Selected State Trooper. Should I say more?
I don’t think you should have to use your fundraising money for state mandates. That’s what taxes are for. Having said that, in our state (NM) our district alone is spending $34 million to upgrade trunk lines for computers that each school is responsible for purchasing out of the money allocated for supplies and upgrades to our in-house computers. So, no new computers or updated software or anything new for students or teachers. It is a real shame. But the only way to change it is to vote these people out. Parents, and teachers, have to finally say ENOUGH!! We won’t take it any more. Parents and teachers know what is best for kids, not the Koch Brothers, or ALEC or it seems our politicians. Good luck.